Politics & Government

Benicia Police Officers Association Responds to Contract

Here is the full text of the statement released by the BPOA.

The Benicia Police Officers’ Association (BPOA) narrowly ratified an agreement to lower the pay of current Police Officers and Sergeants by approximately ten thousand dollars a year each. This is in addition to the ongoing concession of forty-six hundred dollars we gave up last year. In less than one year each Officer and Sergeant has taken nearly fifteen thousand dollars of reductions in their annual income. We the BPOA recognize that the city is under financial hardship, our frustration with the City is a result of their mismanagement and failure to address other savings opportunities. As the Chief Negotiator Emily Prescott of Renee, Sloan, Holtzman and Sakai, LLP said during negotiations late last year, “the City wants the BPOA to have difficulty paying their mortgages”. Mission accomplished, there are currently nine of thirty officers who have either lost their homes or were forced to short sell it as a result of the City’s inability to make hard decisions.

The City waited until the last minute to exercise the reopener in the current Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Benicia and the Benicia Police Officers Association; forcing steeper cuts and making it impossible to find solutions or exchange information in a timely manner. As each months delay caused each Officer and Sergeant to lose an additional five hundred dollars. The BPOA agreed to this contract only because the City made it clear that if we did not accept the offer that it would be more painful.

The BPOA approached the City and pleaded with them to not fill the two vacant police officer positions, the reopener that was ratified was for the specific and narrow purpose of preventing layoffs.  How can the city claim layoffs when they are hiring? The two officer positions would have saved the City nearly two hundred and forty thousand of the three hundred thousand dollars the officers were forced to concede. The BPOA brought solutions to the City to help solve the structural deficit, among them was to move to CalPERS health insurance a move that would have saved the City and the employees several hundred thousand dollars. As mentioned above the focus of the City was not to save money but to harm its employees. Some of the employees of the BPOA now pay nearly twelve hundred dollars a month for health insurance, in addition to the 14.336% of their salary towards retirement equaling more than twelve hundred dollars a month.

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The morale in the Police Department has never been lower. The City’s shift from a compassionate, employee friendly city was confirmed when the City hired the Firm of Renee, Sloan, Holtzman and Sakai, LLP.  We are disappointed that the City moved from a long term philosophy of working with its employees and being a place people enjoy working to one of sending its employees to evictions and Bankruptcy Court. Our officers may be forced to pick up secondary income or more overtime further leading to burn out and even lower morale.

The BPOA will continue to attempt to work with the City during this year to address the City’s structural deficit and address ongoing issues like Health Care, staffing and any other savings that can be found to restore the financial stability that the Citizens and Police Department of Benicia deserve. The fiscal irresponsibility by this City manager and City Council has to stop.

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The BPOA is proud to serve the citizens of Benicia and are thankful for the support they have shown the BPOA over the years. We hope that the Citizens of Benicia will join us in telling our City Council to find another way to balance the budget other than on the backs of the employees.


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